Yemen Control Map & Timeline: The Siege of Taiz – November 2026 (Subscription)

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Map and timeline by Djordje Djukic and Evan Centanni.

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Since the start of October, Yemen's unrecognized "Houthi" government has launched a new campaign to follow up its September takeover of the Red Sea coast. After a similarly fast advance, the Houthis have surrounded the city of Taiz,  leaving it inside an ever-tightening pocket internationally-recognized government control.

Meanwhile, the far-fetched campaign to counterattack and take back Yemen from the Houthis has sputtered, making only very limited gains, even as Houthi advances west of Aden threaten to surround opposing fighters at the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. However, the Houthis' strongest enemy, neighboring Saudi Arabia, is assembling a major alliance of regional powers, ostensibly to defend from Houthi missile attacks - but possibly also to back up the faltering internationally-recognized government forces in Yemen.
 
This map and report are premium content available to paid subscribers of the PolGeoNow Conflict Mapping Service.

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Exclusive report includes:

• Up-to-date map of territorial control in the Yemeni Civil War, color-coded for the internationally-recognized government (IRG) and allies, led by the Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC); remaining holdouts of the UAE-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC); forces of the unrecognized "Houthi" government; and estimated area of presence of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) 
• Detailed indication of town-by-town control, including provincial boundaries, all major cities, and many smaller locations
• Markers for places recently appearing in the news, including Turbah, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, Perim Island, Kahbub mountain, Wadi Omran (Awimran), Samdah (Wadi Abidah), Al Labanat, and many more
• Concise, beginner-friendly summary of the current situation and key events since the start of October, covering the siege of Taiz and concurrent events
• Detailed timeline of changes to control and other major events since October 1, 2026, with links to sources

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Can I purchase just this map?
This map and report are not available for automated purchase to non-subscribers. If you need access or republication rights for only this map report, contact service@polgeonow.com for options.

Sept. 2026 Yemen Control Map & Timeline: War Reignites as Houthis Take Red Sea Coast

This report, published in November 2026, covers events in Yemen from early February to the end of September 2026, and is free for all readers as a sample of PolGeoNow's professional Yemen control map and reports series. For events from the start of October to present, including a map of territorial control in November 2026, see our accompanying subscriber-only report. Subscribers to our control mapping service get access to our full archive of territorial control map reports, including ongoing series on several other conflicts and historical coverage of many more.

There are newer versions of this map available. To see them, view all Yemen articles on PolGeoNow.

Map by Evan Centanni and Djordje Djukic, from base map by Koen Adams of onestopmap.com.
Contact us for permission to use this map.

Timeline by Djordje Djukic and Evan Centanni

Houthi-PLC Truce Ends Amid Struggle for Red Sea Chokepoint

In the first six months following our February 2026 Yemen control map report, which covered the collapse of control by the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) in the south and east, the country’s frontlines remained calm. However, as Yemen’s internationally-unrecognized “Houthi” government returned to cross-border war with neighboring Saudi Arabia in July, the four-year-old truce between Houthi and anti-Houthi forces began to break down.

Africa and the World Map: Six Things Everyone Got Wrong About the UN Vote

Graphic by PolGeoNow, starting from maps by Geordie Bosanko, Justin Kunimune, Canuckguy, and Martin23230. You can take and use this image for free, as long as you follow the rules of the CC BY-SA license, and link back to our site when possible – but please consider buying us a coffee if it's useful to you!

Article by Evan Centanni 

Maps at the United Nations: What Really Happened 

The internet has gone wild this month with news about a United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolution, passed on September 4, to endorse what headlines called a “new world map”. (A General Assembly resolution is a kind of official statement about what most of the world’s countries think or want.)

Unfortunately, most reporting on the UN action has been a mix of exaggerations, misunderstandings, and bad simplifications, with people getting mostly the wrong impressions about what happened. And as in past cases, the media mostly didn’t interview the actual map experts. But not to worry – we have one of those here!

US, Ukraine, and More: Which Countries Criticized the UN’s World Map Vote, and the Truth About Why

The UN General Assembly Hall in New York City, where this month's map vote took place. Unlike the smaller UN Security Council, the General Assembly has little power to enforce decisions on countries, and instead exists more for building international consensus, setting goals, and overseeing projects. Photo by PolGeoNow, from November 2019 (contact us for permission to use it).

UN Map Debate: The truth about the US and Ukrainian arguments, and what other countries said

As you might have heard, the United Nations (UN) held a vote early this month about maps, discouraging the use of the mapmaking method known as the Mercator projection, which produces world maps that hugely exaggerate the size of places far from the equator (like northern Europe, Siberia, Canada, and Antarctica). The idea is that this is unfair to countries like those in Africa, which look smaller than they really are compared to countries in more-powerful Europe. The Equal Earth projection was promoted as a good alternative, because it perfectly preserves relative sizes (while introducing other kinds of distortion).

Unfortunately, even major news media got key details wrong – for example, the UN didn’t officially “adopt” or “replace” any map or projection. For the truth about what it really did, check out our separate article on six things most people misunderstood about the UN decision. If you have opinions about map projections, you should definitely read that first! But if you're looking for the details on which countries said what, you're already in the right place...

Syria Control Map & Timeline: The End of the SDF - August 2026 (Subscription)

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Researched and written by Djordje Djukic and Evan Centanni. Map by onestopmap.com, Djordje Djukic, and Evan Centanni.  
 

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In the past five months, independent Kurdish-led control of the northeast has melted away under a merger agreement with the Syrian national government, leading to this week's announcement that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have formally ceased to exist (however, claims that integration is complete are greatly exaggerated).

In the southwest, Israeli forces have held their ground and dug in (literally), amid a threat of Israeli civilian "settlements" in the zone, while deep cracks have appeared in Sweida (Suwayda) province's Druze paramilitary "National Guard" coalition, with its leader charting an increasingly controversial political course both internally and externally.

Meanwhile, fighters of the "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) have dramatically reduced their pace of attacks across the country, despite the withdrawal of most US troops, while on the coast, Russia has agreed to share its bases with the Syrian military.

Find the answers to all your questions in our professional report, with full summaries of each major trend and topic, and a detailed, painstakingly-researched timeline of events, with sources cited. Both the timeline and summaries are crafted with care by our dedicated humans - no AI slop. Also included, of course, is the latest update to PolGeoNow's concise, professionally-designed overview map of territorial control in Syria. Subscribe now to see it all.

The included map is dated to August 30, 2026, with the report covering events of the past five months, since the publication of our previous map and report on March 25, 2026.

This map and report are premium content, available to paid subscribers of the PolGeoNow Conflict Mapping Service. Please consider subscribing to support our independent, politically-neutral research and cartography, as we rely largely on readers like you, and are currently struggling for funding.

Want to see before you subscribe? Check out our most recent FREE SAMPLE Syria map report.*

*As conflict has slowed down in Syria, our 2026 reports include deeper coverage of the country's military and administrative landscape than seen in this sample report, with less of the play-by-play chronicling of military movements. 

Exclusive map report includes:

• Up-to-date illustration of current territorial control in Syria (excluding the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights), color-coded for the Syrian Transitional Government (STG), formed from former rebel groups led by Ahmed al-Sharaa; the last remnants of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and affiliates (includes Asayish police and DAANES Rojava government); forces of the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL); the Israeli military (IDF), and the Druze paramilitary coalition known as the National Guard in Sweida (Suwayda) province.
• Markers showing the location of Russian military bases, and the US's recently-evacuated Qasrak airbase
• Illustration of major recent active zones for "Islamic State" (ISIS/ISIL) operatives in areas outside the group's control, approximated from ACLED data on incidents both targeting them and perpetrated by them
• Detailed indication of city-by-city control, including key towns and other locations important to current events
• Locations of recent control changes and other important events, including Kobani, Hmeimim airbase, Mount Hermon, Semalka border crossing, Shahba and Arman (Jordanian airstrikes), Al-Mazraa, Ma'ariya, and many more
• Concise, beginner-friendly summary of the current situation and key events over the past five months, covering major developments and trends for each of Syria's major armed parties and administrations
• Detailed timeline of changes to territorial control, major military events, and key political developments since March 25, 2026, with background explanations and links to sources.

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Can I purchase just this map?
This map and report are not available for automated purchase to non-subscribers. If you need access or republication rights for only this map report, contact service@polgeonow.com for options.